The Cynical Christian

Primary Menu

The Journey to Life

Do people who started out as pro-life ever write touching, heartfelt stories about how they became pro-abortion? I’ve never seen one, but maybe they do.

Nevertheless, it’s fairly common for people who were formerly pro-abortion to write up their conversion stories. Here’s a particularly sweet and perceptive one from Rich Cromwell at The Federalist:

Back in 2007, though, no one was going to take away my dog if I got caught with a little weed and my employer was a supporter of legalization, so the night of the ultrasound I sat down on the couch, smoked a bowl, and watched that DVD over and over again.

It was a punch to the gut. There was this little person with two arms and two legs. Rolling around. Chomping her teeth.

Life was no longer a theory, an abstraction. It was a squirming, rolling, teeth chomping reality. A squirming, rolling, teeth chomping reality I helped create.

At 20 weeks, Greer, in all her teeth-chomping, rolling, squirming glory, was just outside of the realm of legally being a choice. Did the magical transformation from clump of cells to little person happen because of the ultrasound? Was my wife to give birth to the female Bruce Banner? Or was I, stoned out of my mind, finally realizing that those euphemisms created by penumbras and emanations are just clever attempts at masking the truth, of making us forget how biology works?

…

Back when life was a theory, before wine and the passionate abandon caused me to create it, I lived under an illusion—that life isn’t life till we decide it is. That life is defined by plans and control. Since that time, I’ve experienced terror, wonder, anger, and joy. The last one is the most important. That’s the one that surprises you, sneaks up on you, reminds you that there was a spark inside that skeleton rolling around on your television screen. And once you recognize and accept that spark, you accept the possibility for more.

Good to see that reality can still have a positive effect on some people.